Broken Notes
by EmmaLee Masen
Summary: When tragedy strikes, sometimes it takes someone unexpected to come into your life to help you along in the healing process.


**Title:** Broken Notes

**Penname(s):** EmmaLee Masen

**Fandom:** Twilight

**Pairing(s):** Edward and Bella

**Picture #:** 59

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** The Characters of Twilight are owned by Stephenie Meyer. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by EmmaLee Masen as of 2010. Plagiarism is theft- think before you steal content...

**Summary:** When tragedy strikes, sometimes it takes someone unexpected to come into your life to help you along in the healing process.

**Submitted for the 100 Pictures—An Anon Fanfic Competition**

**Please check out the other entries here:** http:/www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/community/100_Pictures_An_Anon_Fanfic_Competition_Entries/83603/

* * *

><p><strong>Bella POV<strong>

"_Orch-dork, get a move on!" Alice yelled down the hall at me as I exited the band room. Two weeks. That is all that we had left in this place, then we were moving on to bigger and better things. _

_ "Hurry your skinny ass up! Seriously, Bells, could you walk any slower?" Emmett asked as he stood waiting impatiently next to Alice. "Daddy is hungry!" Emmett yelled enthusiastically, scaring a few of the little freshman with his big voice as he rubbed his stomach with a grin on his face._

_ "I could, but then you would probably throw me over your shoulder again." I yelled down the hall as I got closer to my waiting friends. "Don't even think about it." I yelled toward Emmett as I saw the wheels starting to turn in his brain. _

_ We had been planning our skip day for a couple weeks now. Forks High School's administration had implemented an official senior skip day where they bussed the seniors to an amusement park, but I really didn't want any part of that trip and neither did Alice or Emmett, so we were going to have our own senior skip day of three. The administration thought that implementing an official skip day would eliminate seniors from planning their own. Oh, how wrong they were. _

_As finals were coming up the next week we couldn't afford to take a whole day off, so we were just skipping the second half of our school day. We had planned it out perfectly so that__ we wouldn't be missing anything important. Sure we wanted to skip, but our grades were still our number one priority. _

_ I arrived next to Alice and Emmett, and we made our way out of the building toward Alice's car with Emmett and me__ pushing and shoving at the other the whole way. It felt good to be a rebel; it was quite the rush. Who knew being bad could be so much fun? When we got to the car, Emmett and I had our usual fight over who would be riding shot-gun, and of course his large stature easily pushed me out of the way as he took the front seat while I climbed into the back. Why did I even try? I always ended up in the backseat._

"Mitosis." A voice whispered in my ear.

What the fu...Shit, the professor was staring right at me. "Mitosis?" I repeated the whispered word.

"That would be correct. As Miss Swan said, the cells go through mitosis…" The professor continued his lecture.

"Thanks." I turned and thanked my savior.

"Edward." He held out his hand for me to take. The cute boy I sat next to that was the soul reason that I had not missed a single biology lecture this semester finally had a name.

"Bella." I said as I took his hand for a brief moment before I went back to pretending to pay attention to the biology lecture, when in all actuality I had spent most of the semester watching the god-like man next to me take his beautifully written and way too structured notes all semester while my pages stayed blank.

**~*~LR~*~**

I was just sitting there, staring absently at what had been my life. I was wondering. Wondering what had happened to me. Where had my passion gone? I used to love to play. I used to love my life. What happened to me? Why was I suddenly a shell of the person I had once been?

As I sat here, staring at the dusty violin that my parents had paid too much money for years ago, wondering the answers to those questions, I came up with nothing. I knew the answer, but still I wouldn't allow myself to answer the question. I just continued to sit, staring at the beautifully carved instrument that was now haunting me. I couldn't just reach over there, wipe off the dust and pick it up like I had so many other times before. I was stuck in an impasse.

But unfortunately for me, my impasse was not going to be one where I was able to just sit and ponder. No, I had to go live a life that I despised in order to keep my parents happy and be a "functioning member of society". Yeah, life sucks. But please, don't try to tell me how badly your life sucks, because all I will do is roll my eyes and wish I didn't have to listen to you bitch. That is a bit hypocritical of me, yes?

I grabbed my old beat up backpack that carried all things important, basically it was my survival kit. If my apartment were to be broken into, though I have no clue why a robber would want to break in, but say it were to happen, I wouldn't really miss anything they would find to take. Nothing in that apartment meant anything to me anymore. It was just stuff from a past life that my parents had moved and arranged for me in my "new home" while I was attending the University of Washington.

Does it sound suicidal to say that? Well, for the record I am not suicidal. I know the kind of person I am, and I know that I could never purposefully take my own life. I am not strong enough to go through with something like that. Yes, I say strong enough, because I believe that you have to truly be a strong person to take your own life. Sick as it may be, I have actually thought about such things.

I have my backpack slung over my shoulder with a death grip on my keys as I exit my apartment and check to make sure that I had just locked the door. Yup, it is good and locked. By the time I get to my old beat up Chevy truck, I know I will be late for my appointment. I spent too much time sitting, staring at my past this morning. Maybe they won't have time for me this morning and will let me have the week off? I doubt it, but a girl can dream.

I drove the memorized distance to my appointment like a robot. Now, here I sit tin the parking lot staring at a shiny silver Volvo wondering why it is parked here. I'd never seen it before, and after several months of weekly appointments you start to learn what cars to expect and which are new patients. Hopefully it isn't another Mr. James. That guy was seriously messed up; thank god they changed his appointment time.

I took a deep breath, as that action had become a common thing I had to do to even make it through those doors every week. Once I was out of the truck and had slammed the old door shut, I watched in annoyance as a few flecks of rusted paint fell to the ground. That thing was going to die on me; I could feel it in my bones. After huffing in annoyance at the piece of shit truck I was driving, I made my way toward the front door of my psychiatrist's office.

Once I was inside I said a quick hello to Sue, the receptionist, as I signed in. I had been the first appointment of the day for quite some time now, and according to the log-in sheet, that hadn't changed. I was still the first of the day to sign in even though there was a mystery car in the parking lot.

After sitting and staring aimlessly at my phone, pretending to be sending a text message to one of the few contacts in my phone that I rarely communicate with, 'the doctor was ready to see me'. _Yay!_ This was going to be a _great_ week considering where we had left off last week.

"Good morning, Bella. How have you been?" Doctor Hale asked with his piercing blue eyes staring intently at me as if I were some complicated math problem he was trying to solve.

"Same." I said bluntly. I was only here to appease my parents and the Cullens. _They were worried about me. _Hell, I'd be worried about me if I were them too.

"Where would you like to begin this week, Bella?" Doctor Hale asked.

"How about I draw you a pretty little picture and then you can psychoanalysis it like you do with the little kids, because we all know just how much _fun _that would be," I said sarcastically. I didn't want to be mean to Doctor Hale, but it was my natural defense mechanism to keep him at bay. By keeping him at bay, I was also keeping the memories at bay.

"Why are we here, Bella?" Jasper asked trying to keep the stressed sound out of his voice unsuccessfully.

"To keep my parents happy." I stated as if I were being asked to answer one plus one.

"What is keeping you happy, Bella?" Jasper asked.

I was confused by this, what was keeping me happy? Was I even happy? No. "Nothing. I haven't been happy in a while, to be honest with you, _Doctor Hale." _I stated as I looked down at my fingers that were intertwining and untwining constantly at a rather rapid pace. A nervous habit I suppose.

"Why is that?" He asked as he sat back in his seat with my file open next to him on a small end table.

"You know why. Why do you insist on asking questions you already know the answer to?" I was annoyed now. It was not uncommon for me to become annoyed at these appointments.

"Please just tell me, Bella. Say the words." Jasper practically begged. I was such a bitch of a patient, but I couldn't seem to help it.

"I survived a car accident that killed my two best friends. Are you happy now?" I asked as the first of the tears started to fall from my eyes.

"Showing emotion is a good thing, Bella; you shouldn't suppress it." Jasper said, and I knew what was expected of me next. I was just going to skip the bullshit and get to where we were going to eventually get to anyway.

"I survived for a reason. I may not know that reason now, but there was a reason." Jasper had made me repeat those sentences many times. When I first started seeing him several months ago, I had no clue why I had survived. I still don't.

"I have something different planned for the rest of your session. You won't be talking to me, but someone has asked to be allowed to talk to you. I will see you next week for a regular appointment, though," Jasper said as he got up from his seat and opened the door to tell Sue he was ready for Edward. _Why did that name sound so familiar? _

A few seconds later Edward walked in the door. _What the hell is my biology hottie doing here? Seriously, what the hell?_

He came in and sat down where Jasper had been, and I heard the door click shut. He didn't make eye contact at first; he just sat there staring at his shoes as if they were the most interesting thing on earth.

"I am Edward Cullen. I know you don't know me, but I know you," he said. And there it all made sense.

I had only been in Forks for my senior year. I had moved there over the summer with my family. It was one of those normal things, change of jobs, change of address. I had been set up with Alice Cullen on my first day of school and from there we were instant friends, and of course Emmett McCarty was a part of the deal as he had been Alice's "bodyguard" since they were little kids.

"I know you don't want to be here right now, and neither do I, but my mother thinks it would be beneficial if we talked, and apparently so did Doctor Hale." Edward said the last part with obvious disgust.

"Did you know who I was?" I asked, referring to the fact that he had been sitting next to me all semester in our biology class and the only time we had exchanged words was a few days ago in class. I had been shocked to see him walk in, but he hadn't seemed the least bit shocked to see me.

"Yes, I knew you looked familiar, but when Professor Banner called your name and asked you that question about mitosis last lecture I knew who you were." He answered honestly.

"Looked familiar?" I asked quietly.

"Uh, pictures in Alice's room." He answered with his eyes avoiding mine.

"Oh." I said more to myself.

"What happened? I don't want to know what the police report said, I just want to know why I am sitting here in Seattle, Washington, seven months after my sister died in a car that you were in, with depressed parents that asked me to move back home and missing my baby sister." He said as he looked up at me for the first time.

After a long pause I started my guilt ridden ramble. "We shouldn't have been out that day. We should have been in school, but Alice, Emmett, and I had decided to plan our own senior skip day." It sounded so dumb to say it; my best friends died because we wanted a senior skip day.

"We were on our way back from Port Angeles it was late and raining. Alice and Emmett were in the front singing to _Baby Got Back, _and I was sitting with my head resting against the window in the back seat, exhausted from our long day. It all happened so quickly." I let out a breath.

"Alice got a little too carried away with her singing, she turned to Emmett to belt out the chorus with him, and the started to car move to the edge of the lane to the point that we were driving partially on the soft shoulder. By the time Alice realized how far over she had gotten, she tried to correct the car back into the lane, but she did it too abruptly. I felt the car jerk, then the car overturned. Alice and Emmett were ejected, and I was stuck in the back seat of the car with a broken leg from the impact and deep cuts on my head," I said.

"I swear, they had been wearing their seatbelts, but the police said there was no way they would have been ejected if they had been. Alice had always been a seatbelt Nazi; I swear she wouldn't even start the car until we were all buckled," I cried as I remembered that horrible day.

"Alice and Emmett were pronounced dead at the scene as I was put on the life flight helicopter to the hospital en route to Forks. They didn't even try to save them," I choked out as I remembered watching as the medical crews didn't do anything to try to save Alice or Emmett. The people just stood there, taking their lifeless bodies from the spots they had landed many feet from her car as they moved my best friends onto stretchers without even attempting to save their lives before covering their mangled bodies so that they were out of sight. They were all worried about taking care of me. They refused to listen as I screamed for them to help them. _Save them; don't worry about me. Save them. _

I looked up from the spot on the ground I had been talking to, to see extra water forming in Edward's eyes.

"It's not your fault;you know that right?" Edward asked. I was not expecting that.

"Even if you don't know that, I hope you eventually learn to believe it. Because that is the truth, it wasn't your fault, Bella. No one blames you for what happened that night," Edward said as he reached over and grasped my hand, and as if on queue, my sobbing increased.

After a few moments I felt the cushion next to me push down with the weight of Edward's body as he pulled me into his chest as I continued to cry. I don't know how long I cried for, but it was for far too long. Edward and I were missing the opening lines of our final biology lecture of the semester that was being given by our cross-eyed professor before finals the next week.

I pulled away from Edward's chest and mumbled sorry as I stood up. not looking at him, as I grabbed my backpack off the ground and walked out of the room and past Sue, not needing to make an appointment as they were pretty much set, and walked out the door numbly toward my truck.

Half an hour later, I was on campus missing the end of the biology lecture as I walked across campus toward my literature lecture. The air was cold and crisp in the December climate of Seattle. I was ready for this semester to be over. Next week was finals week, then I would be forced to return to Forks to spend the holidays with my parents in a town of people that looked at me with a look that just read, "That poor girl, at least she survived. She was the lucky one."

Those looks did nothing but help me find the strength to dig myself deeper into my hole of self loathing. I was not lucky. I was here living out my personal hell with the guilt of my best friends' deaths looming over me constantly. How do you move on after seeing your best friends lying dead and no one helping them? All of those fucking people and not one of them did a thing for Alice or Emmett. They were all just worried about helping me. Why me?

**~*~LR~*~**

I was lying in the meadow that Alice and Emmett had shown me on one hot summer day a few weeks after I arrived in Forks. The meadow looked nothing like it had that day as it was now covered in a layer of cold snow that was slightly chilling through my many winter layers. Alice, Emmett, and I spent a lot of time out here after that day. We would just sit, talk, read, or even go out there to work on homework. It was a safe place. It was somewhere where I could go and just be.

One thing Alice hadn't told me back then was we weren't the only ones that knew about the meadow that sat just behind her house. I found that out as the winter sun was now being blocked by a body creating a shadow over me. I opened my eyes and pulled out the earbuds that had been inhabiting my ears to see Edward Cullen standing there staring down at me.

"You're in my meadow," he said with a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. I knew all about the forcing of smiles. I had been doing it for over seven months now.

"I didn't know it had your name on it," I said sarcastically. God, I felt like an insolent child. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I understand," he said as he moved, letting the winter sunlight bathe me once again. as he moved towards the edge of the meadow to lean against a tree. That was probably his tree. His moves had looked calculated, like he knew which tree it was he wanted.

As soon as he sat he opened the book he had been carrying that I hadn't noticed and he started to read. He looked almost God-like sitting there with the sun bringing out the natural highlights in his hair as he sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him.

"I came here to be close to her," I said quietly.

He looked up. "Me, too," Edward said before looking back down to his book. I took that as I sign he wasn't here to talk. I hadn't been either, so now I was stuck staring at him feeling like I was invading. But this is the one place I could feel close to Alice.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be happy. Alice and I were supposed to be sharing a beautiful apartment across the country attending a fancy Ivy League university and gossiping about the cute boys in our classes or complaining about the annoying people that insisted on asking a million questions. I wasn't supposed to be living alone in an apartment in Seattle because my parents kept me close to home so they could have an easier time with their "Bella suicide watch", with no friends to speak of, or currently sitting in Alice's meadow staring at her older brother as he wanted the same thing as me. To just be close to her again. To get to hear her laugh one more time. To have her ask if her outfit was_ adorable_ just one more time. This isn't the way it was supposed to be. Yet, this is the way it is.

After a bit of watching the way Edward's eyes roamed the page and the way his fingers did a dance as he got close to turning the page, I laid back down in the meadow that had once been filled with wild flowers but now was covered in a white pure layer of snow and put my earbuds back into my ears and went back to listening to my ipod as it switched over to the sounds I could no longer force myself to create.

After a while and several symphonies later, the shadow returned. I took that as a sign to open my eyes and pull out my earbuds once again, but before I got the chance my hand was being encased in a large warm hand. I didn't fight the warmth, it was comforting and welcomed. I knew deep down I longed for human connection other than my sessions with Doctor Hale, the fights with my mother over the violin I refused to play, or the occasional answering of the mundane question about an upcoming due date with a fellow classmate.

My hands had been cold, so the warmth from Edward's was welcomed. I had forgotten my gloves this morning and didn't care enough to go back home to get them. I sat there feeling the wonderful feeling of a man's hand tracing my fingers with his as I kept my eyes closed, hoping the soothing feeling would never end. I felt at peace. For once, it felt like some of the weight and depression was lifting. For some reason Edward's hands were more therapeutic than the months of sessions with Doctor Hale.

I finally opened my eyes to see green ones not far from mine staring intently at me. I took my free hand and maneuvered my earbuds out of my ears.

"You used to play, but you haven't played in a while." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.

"How could you tell?" I asked as I jerked my hand out of his warm soothing one regretfully.

"I was watching you. You were playing the songs along with your iPod. But you are lacking the calluses that a violinist would have, so I am guessing you haven't played in months," Edward said.

"It's been just over seven months," I answered. I hadn't played since that day, right before I had exited the band room to go skip with Alice and Emmett. That had been the last time I had played.

"You shouldn't have stopped. Alice told me how talented you were on the phone once, and if you're even half as good as she said, then you shouldn't have stopped playing," Edward said honestly.

"You don't know anything," I snapped, going into the fighting mode I often found myself in when my mother and I had similar conversations. Usually I hung up on her or walked away, so it wasn't a shock to me as I got up and walked out of the meadow leaving Edward alone after freaking out. _What did he know? Why did he think he had any right to tell me anything? He knows nothing. Nothing about what I have been through. _

**~*~LR~*~**

Why did I find myself doing this so much? It seemed like a constant in my life. Sit in the living room and stare at the beautifully carved piece of wood I hadn't picked up and played since that horrible day. It was a new year and nearly eight months later, but still I couldn't pick it up. My calluses were no longer present on my finger tips. It would hurt to play again; I would have to build up the calluses again. I knew that was just a stupid excuse, but my passion was gone. It had left the moment I'd seen the bloodied lifeless bodies of my best friends on the cement with their blood painting the black tar a deep red. After that moment, nothing in my life made sense or felt like it had any value. What was the point?

I sighed as I grabbed my backpack and keys off of the coffee table and made my way out of my uninviting apartment toward my truck for my weekly appointment with Doctor Hale. So far, I had been attending these appointments for five months and I still had no idea why I had survived and not Alice or Emmett. All I did these days was move lethargically through life and feel guilty that I had survived instead of them and study my ass off to get perfect grades.

Alice was set to be our class valedictorian. She'd wanted to save the world. She'd wanted to make a difference. I was living out her dream of succeeding in college. Emmett on the other hand would have been drinking it up and partying. I tried the drinking, but after spending an entire night next to a toilet expelling the contents of my stomach, I decided that Emmett's version of college was just something I couldn't live out for him.

So far, I still had no idea what I was going to do to save the world as Alice had talked about almost continuously. What would Alice have done? Alice was going to major in pre-med. She wanted to go into medical research, find the cure for cancer, save millions of lives through her research. Emmett on the other side of things had a passion for working with kids. He was always volunteering, coaching little league, or acting as a big brother for an underprivileged kid in Port Angeles. When looking at the things they did that made them much better people than I had ever considered being, I still wondered why me and not them. They would have made an honest difference in the world. But I was just a floater, just getting by; basically I had only lived for myself, where they had lived for others. I was selfish where they had been giving, so why did I survive?

I was not the researching type. I knew that no matter how much I wanted to live for Alice I couldn't live out that dream for her. I would have to adjust. I would have to find my own way to save the world, make it a better and happy place.

After waiting in the waiting room for Doctor Hale to get his head out of his ass and realize his first patient of the day had been sitting and waiting for fifteen minutes, I was finally ushered into the usual room by Sue who was apologizing for the delay the whole way.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I said as I entered the room to see Edward and Doctor Hale sitting in the room with the only option for me to sit was the floor or next to Edward also known as: Mister Know-it-all. For someone so unbelievably beautiful he sure knew how to piss me off.

"Good morning, Bella," Doctor Hale said as Sue shut the door behind me, trapping me in here with these two imbeciles. I dropped my bag and went to sit next to Edward on the couch. No matter how much I didn't want to sit next to him, I wasn't going to sit on the ground like an insolent child to avoid it.

"For you maybe it is, otherwise, I highly doubt it," I said as I glared toward Edward as I sat. Fucking annoying ass, thinking he knows everything. "_You shouldn't stop playing." Well, fuck you;,you don't know what I lived though or saw that day._

"Can we have just a moment, Jasper?" Edward asked.

"You are seriously on a first name basis with this ass?" I asked Doctor Hale. Sure, I knew Doctor Hale's first name, but I never called him it out loud.

"Bella, be nice," Doctor Hale said as he got up to leave.

"Fuck me," I muttered as Dr. Hale shut the door as he was out of the room.

"What was that, Bella?" Edward asked, testing me.

"I said FUCK YOU. Did you hear me clearly that time?" I asked.

"I just wanted to apologize for my behavior before Christmas. I had no right to suggest what you should or shouldn't do."

I was shocked. What was I supposed to say to that? _Damn straight, jackass? _No, that wouldn't work. Well—maybe it would. "Damn straight, Jackass."

"I deserve that, but I still meant what I said. However, it wasn't my place to say it. I do hope to hear you play someday. Maybe your music will save a life," Edward said.

_He sounded like Alice for a second there… Save lives with music… Sick people and music… _I finally knew how I was going to save the world in my own way. as Alice had always talked about being her goal. Make a difference.

"Thank you, I'm sorry, but I need to go," I said as I grabbed my backpack and pulled out my keys as I walked out of the room and rushed out of the office.

Ah, that annoying feeling of someone following you when you are trying to make a hasty get away—most annoying shit in the world. And yeah, I am totally dealing with that right now, and it is also yelling my name. _Bella, Bella. Bella__! _

"What?" I asked as I turned around with my back resting against the driver's side door of my beat up truck. I was probably getting rust and stains on my white tee-shirt.

"I—I just wanted to do this-" I saw him moving in, but I couldn't bring myself to stop it from happening. I wanted this. That was part of the reason why I found Edward so frustrating. I wanted this beautiful man to see me as something other than "that girl that survived". I didn't want to be that girl anymore. I was sick of being that girl. Before I had known that my biology eye candy was Alice's older brother, he was the person I pictured doing that for me. I wasn't "that girl" in his eyes, but when he learned my name I became "that girl" to him. I just wanted out of that role. So, I let it happen. This kiss would free me from that role. If only for a second, I could be free.

His eyes lowered to my lips as he licked his, leaving them wet and supple. I knew what he wanted and I wasn't going to stop him, because under the anger I wanted this too. I wanted this kiss. I wanted a carefree moment where I didn't have to think. I could just be…alive.

His warm lips landed on mine, they were tentative at first as he brought one hand to my waist and the other to the side of my face where he rubbed my cheek with his thumb. Soon enough I found my lips moving with his as he nipped and sucked at my lower lip. I was in heaven; this was heaven, and now I knew why I had survived. I had survived for this perfect moment where my best friends hadn't been ejected from Alice's car and I hadn't seen them lying dead with their blood covering the road. Right now two people were standing, relishing in a moment where their lives weren't haunted by a dead best friend or a dead little sister.

I stood up on my toes and kissed Edward back. I felt his tongue run across my lower lip asking for entrance; I opened my mouth, and his tongue tangled with mine. I reached up and laced my fingers in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck, relishing in the soft feel of those hairs tickling my fingers. As I did this, he pulled at my waist causing our bodies to become flush, and I was pushed back against my truck slightly.

Even as we were as closely connected as publicly decent, it still wasn't close enough, and there was still that small part of me that hurt and felt the loss I had been dealing with for so long. I broke the kiss and looked down, tucking my chin into my chest as he kept a hold on my waist.

"I have wanted to do that since the first day of class when you sat down next to me humming along to your iPod in your I just like 3.14 shirt," Edward said as he loosened his hold on my waist, and I looked at him quizzically.

"Someday you will know why you survived. Someday you will believe there was a reason you survived. Today I realized my purpose, and I have a feeling you did, too," Edward whispered as he released me and walked away, leaving me breathless and leaning against my truck door with the handle digging into my back.

Half an hour later I was sitting on the couch staring at my violin I had yet to pick up and play since before the moment my world felt as if it were crumbling down when I saw my bloody and battered best friend lying lifelessly on the freeway with her blood dressing the black tar.

I was about to cross a line I couldn't uncross. I reached out, touched a finger to my violin, and wiped away several months' worth of dust, revealing the beautiful polished wood. I reached out and pulled my violin off of the stand my mother had placed it on, hoping that having it on display would get me to play again. I then took a rag and started to clean off several months' worth of dust and guilt I had been carrying around with me.

Once the wood was dust free and looking beautiful again, I picked it up and set it on my shoulder, resting my chin on the black chin rest before I reached for my bow and started to tune the instrument that my parents had paid too much money for years ago. The same instrument that just before Alice's death, I had started to teach her how to play.

As soon as it was tuned I started to play the song that had inspired Alice to want to learn. I was a little rusty, but it was coming back to me. My fingertips were sore, but I continued to play the song for a second time as the tears started to fall.

I knew why I had survived. I was going to make a difference. I was going to change the world in my own little way. I was going to save people with music. But first, I was going to travel home to Forks and have a much needed conversation with my parents and then visit the meadow to let Alice know she hadn't died in vain, that I would never forget her, and to thank her for helping me find my purpose and leading me to her brother who was the one person who could finally break through the walls I had put up since her and Emmett's deaths.

I don't know what will happen in the future, but I know I am going to find a way to work with cancer patients, as cancer research had been Alice's passion. I was going to heal with music, or at least I was going to try. As for Alice's older brother, who knows where that is going to go or if it will go anywhere at all. But he was the one person that was finally able to break through my defenses and make me come back to life and pick up my violin again. It turns out that, that one action was what I have needed all along to take in order to start living again.

* * *

><p><strong>Endnote: Thanks for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts. <strong>

**EmmaLee**


End file.
